Have you ever heard of the character Echo, the lovely wood nymph, in the ancient Greek love tragedy of Echo and Narcissus? We all know very well the fate of Narcissus. He fell in love with his own image in a pool of water right? But what about Echo who fell so deeply in love with Narcissus she disappeared? She must have been his perfect counterpart more than just a mere echo of a voice. I believe she is a much more important character in the story than we have been led to believe. Like all of us who have suffered through relationships with Narcissists, it is time we tell our version of the story. I would like to share mine with you and tell you unlike Echo in the myth I got my voice back.

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Who is Echo?

“Innocence is a natural state for children. When it is carried over into adulthood it requires a tremendous amount of denial and narcissism.”by Carol S. Pearson ‘The Hero Within’.

Echo is a wood nymph. Wood nymphs are natural protectors of plant life and the forest. They tend to interact with humans and elves most regularly. They are also seen as the most spiritual of the nymphs. The problem is that Echo knows none of this. She does not know who she is or where she comes from.

Up until now she never realized this as a big problem. She did have moments when her heart was so full of pain and longing, she was afraid it might break. This confused her because she did not recall any real heart break in her past. This deep longing felt so sharp that it carved a giant emptiness in her. No matter what she did it could never be filled. This emptiness would catch her off guard occurring at the most inopportune moments, like at a party with people she cares about. All she would want to do is run screaming and crying from the room begging her heart to stop making her feel so empty. How can she feel empty in a room full of people that care about her? When she mustered up the courage, she conducted what she thought were real conversations with her heart. But at the time Echo was not a good listener. She wanted things to go her way. She did not listen to much of what her heart had to say.

One of the gifts a wood nymph offers is that they are able to tune in to physical bodies just like they tune into the plants in the forest. Because Echo is not aware she is a nymph, this gift had not been developed beyond a natural tendency, so she was not able to truly communicate with her heart. All she was aware of is some day she might have to do something about this nagging feeling. but mostly she hoped it would just go away. Unfortunately, feelings can be elusive, difficult to understand, and usually return in another more painful form when not dealt with.

Wood nymphs are fierce protectors of the forests, but because Echo is born out of her natural habitat this fierceness can backfire and get translated as a constant defense of what she believes to be her truth. So when her heart challenges her she protects what she believes is her mortal human self.

According to nymph legend, mostly recorded by human pagans, it is possible for a nymph to be reborn by burying their body underneath the seed of a tree. A new and young nymph will step out of a new tree with no recollection of her past. In rare cases, though it definitely does happen, a nymph and a mortal, typically an elf or a human, will mate. This doesn’t always guarantee that the daughter born will be a nymph, but the half child will have some nymph gifts. Nymph blood will forever flow through the daughters of the family and in some cases a descendant of a nymph will be born a full-blooded wood nymph. This is one of the reasons Echo is not aware of who she is because unlike humans the nymph lineage is quite unpredictable.

Way back in Echo’s family one of her great great grandmothers was a nymph and mated with a man. Nobody in the human family knew because nymphs can alter their appearance to look human. Since that time nymph blood flows through the female bloodline in the family. Echo’s great great grandmother never told anyone she was a nymph and died shortly after giving birth to a daughter. Her legacy unknown has been keenly felt by all of the females in the family; a deep knowing that something was missing and yearning for another life and all suffered in silence.

One of the only ways to destroy the immortal wood nymph is to destroy the tree she is bonded with. Plant life is very close to their heart and though they are capable of manipulating it they are always wary not to use it simply as a tool. They are not only protectors of the forests, but they are connected beyond nature to the world of spirit. The purely spiritual beings refer to nymphs as the holders of ‘Great Balance’ and many of the nymphs used to become warriors in order to help resolve the matters within the world and be messengers to the spiritual world.

Some nymphs complete a ceremony known simply as the bonding. A nymph bonds her very existence to a tree or in rare cases a plant. This grants the nymph immense power capable of moving entire forests or causing a plain of grass to grow unimaginably high. The risk that comes with it however is that if the tree is killed the nymph bonded to the tree will die as well.This is what happened to Echo’s great great grandmother.

To make matters worse, wood nymphs have been disappearing over the centuries as more and more trees and plants are destroyed not only killing the nymphs that are bonded to them, but decimating their habitat. The humans have been so devastating to their population that around the time of Echo’s great great grandmother wood nymphs from all over the world had their very first global meeting in a last ditch effort to save their way of life. They realized they couldn’t convince the humans to stop killing the forests, but they could infiltrate their biology and culture from the inside out. So the queen wood nymph after listening to all of her sisters, as nymphs will always refer to one another, ordered the majority of the nymphs to use their beauty and gifts to attract human mates and make children. This will penetrate the human bloodline with nymph blood and in this way will change humanity from the inside out. Nymph blood will enhance their spiritual abilities eventually awakening the human race from their cruel slumber.

The last recorded sighting of a wood nymph in her natural habitat was by a mountaineer. He had gotten lost in the Canadian Rockies for days in 1902. and claimed a strange and beautiful female creature seemingly came out of a tree to guide him to safety. He described the miraculous creature as having a green tint to her skin and dressed in leaves and bark like part of a tree. To be continued…….